[This Renhai was written in Esperanto and translated into English (see the notes for the Esperanto version). It was also an experiment in a new approach to writing renhai. That is, each verse was written without concern for a theme, only about the links between each verse. With the linking itself, the focus was at the emotional level and less at the object or intellectual level. As it turned out, a theme emerged all on its own.]

5 comments:

When I read it first, I felt something different to the usual renhai. I read a second time and thougt: a forthright poem! Then I read the eplanations, followed the links and tried to read the Esperanto version - and I see, my first and second thoughts weren't too wrong. Interesting experiment, which leads into western-style poetry (as far as I can tell).

RBroeker: I personally don't think this results in a Western style poem. :-) The only difference from previous renhai is that there was no concern for a theme during its writting. The fact that one emerged anyway could be evidence for it being a regular renhai, although the process may have produced something different in essence. Other renhai with this process will need to be done to see if this is, in fact, true.

Kristin, Thanks... perhaps it might be of interest to actually step through one of this in more detail.

About Masago

From "The Haiku Anthology" I became interested in Haiku and I have since written numerous haiku, senyru, and tanka. "Masago", my haiku pen-name, means "grain(s) of sand" in Japanese. I have recently started learning Esperanto and Japanese. A few years ago I developed a new eastern verse form which we now call 'Renhai'.